How to make your turkey shelter easy and not break the bank on current lumber prices! Build your turkeys this quick and easy turkey shelter. We have taken to call it the turkey covered wagon to protect from the elements while ranging in your field.
Our turkeys are inside a premier 1 electric poultry fence as the primary ground predator protection and do not require a fully enclosed coop.
Build
Five 8′ 2″x4″ boards.
Two 20″ wheels with ¾” hub bearings.
Two ¾” bolts, with a nut and 2 or 3 large washers
Four 10′ ¾” cpvc pipes
One bag of ¾” conduit pipe clamps (8 total)
One 8’x10′ white tarp
One bag of ½” pvc green house clamps (does fit on the ¾” cpvc)
Handle
Screws
Zip ties (bigger to go around the 2″x4″)
Assembly
Cut five 2″x4″ boards in half giving you eight 4′ long sections. Frame the base perching area 16″ between roost using a total of seven 4′ sections.
Cut the last 4′ section into two 1′ pieces for the front legs
Drill a ¾” hole in the rear section for attaching the wheels. We placed ours centered 6″ in. This allows any hight of lift from the front yet the back will not touch the ground.
Bend the cpvc, attach with the pipe clamps and a single screw through the pipe to hold in place.
Ziptie the tarp on, place greenhouse clamps on the end and attach a handle!
Overall, this was simple and with the correct tools and supplies took 1 hour to build.
Roll on out for your birds to enjoy
Employment
This has no predator protection!
We use a single 100′ long 42″ tall premier 1 poultry net set anywhere in the yard.
The first day on fresh pasture resulted in almost no feed consumption! The crows had more feed than the turkeys!
The Turkey Covered Wagon has been moved with ease by 1 person all across our 3 acres. We are currently implementing a weekly rotation around 1 centralized solar energizer. Check out our post on electric fences to see more about this system and the equipment.
Issues
Wind!
The weight of this structure does have a downside combined with the tarp roof!
Can someone say giant sail?
2 times the wagon has gone out sailing without us around. One landed on the fence allowing the turkeys out into the yard!! My wife’s grandma and mother were herding turkeys while we were away!
This is not a common case though. If our turkeys get out of the rain and perch during the storm…the extra weight does hold the wagon down!
The second resulted in the fence full intact and the wagon perfectly positioned 50ft away near the middle of our property. If I did not know the wind was there one would think someone rolled it there as a prank!
The tie down
This reduced the mobility of the wagon, though we are not doing daily moves so the effect on our day to day is minimal.
Some tie down straps and tent stakes on the 4 corner! Simple items that were not in use elsewhere at the time.
How well it works….it survived some serious wind multiple times. Enough to blow chairs, totes, full trash cans and anything not tied down right into our neighbors yard!
I have since removed these tie down straps since our heritage turkeys roost more during storms and weigh down the wagon.
Snow…we don’t have much but I would guess this design will not tolerate a large snow load. The hoop run we used in the past was similar and the snow fell off the sides not building up.
The verdict
Easy build, relatively cheap, easy to move and fits the bill for some shelter! Win in our book and remains in use!